7 ms·

No Babies? -- Causes for the aging population of Europe

39 points by b-man 16y ago

amttc 16y ago
Compare with this article from a few months back: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.... . While this article isn't exclusively about just birth rate, it notes that Sweden has one of the higher birthrates in Europe. Looking at wikipedia, the birth rate for Sweden is still (what I suppose is) low, only 1.67, compared with the US at 2.09. edit: just in case you aren't inclined to read through, the article is about granting fathers paternity leave.
- jarin 16y ago
  Darn, and I thought it was going to be about Children of Men.
  - amttc 16y ago
    I think what all of these articles point to is that it's expensive or time consuming to raise kids, so people simply don't have them. It seems like the key to raising fertility rates is just to provide a good environment for parents to have them in, like giving leave to new parents and giving tax incentives or stipends to those who do. Then again, its probably more complex than this.
    - spamizbad 16y ago
      An interesting argument I've heard wrt to "high" western birthrate countries is that it has more to do with the societal roles of women. In both the United States and Sweden, women are generally told they can have both a career and become mothers, and while this view is not universally held in either country, it's a widespread belief. By contrast, in western nations with lower birthrates, the social views tilt towards women being told they can have a career OR become a mother, and that trying to be both is detrimental. What tends to happen in nations when motherhood becomes an either-or proposition is, women opt to either forgo childbearing or chose to only have 1 child and then continue on with their career track. Whereas in countries with a broader view of motherhood, women who want both aren't guilted by society to stop at 1 or, and likewise fewer women face the choice of forgoing or limiting motherhood to pursue their career ambitions.
      - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        Generally there is a bounce. For a generation after women get the chance of a career, education etc the birth rate plumnets - this is the position Italy is in. Then 20-30 years later those same women have reached positions in politics, industry, education etc where they can influence policy on childcare, maternity leave etc. Then the number of children goes back up - this is the state Scandanavia is in. Germany is a little odd, remember that less than 20years ago it absorbed a 3rd world country which rather screws up it's stats.
        Riesling 16y ago
        Calling the DDR a 3rd world country is a little exaggerated in my opinion.
        kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        HN now with free hyperbole.
yoasif_ 16y ago
This article is a bit of a slog (but well worth reading) -- I summarized the most interesting part to me (birthrates and why) here: http://quippd.com/show/4304/Where_have_all_Europes_babies_gone http://quippd.com/show/4304/Where_have_all_Europes_babies_go...
bpodgursky 16y ago
Sometimes worry that this is a depressing answer to Fermi's paradox (Fermi's paradox asks why no intelligent life has been found, if the odds of it are so high): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Maybe when a species/civilization gets to a certain point of sophistication and intelligence, the motive to keep expanding (or even reproducing, apparently) stops, and they don't go on to colonize anywhere else. Really, the only reason the Americas are so populated right now is because of crazy overpopulation in Europe at the time. If a new continent was discovered today (or if Mars was suddenly terraformed), how long would it take for it to be populated? Would it ever be?
- adnam 16y ago
  It's not sophistication and intelligence. It's the cost of living.
  - bpodgursky 16y ago
    I don't think it's that simple. Plenty of people living in poverty manage to have quite large families. I think instead it's the desire to have children only if you can have them and still live a the level of comfort you desire. It used to be, that people had kids simply because it was the default, and everyone did. But now that society has advanced to the point that people are able to make different decisions, it seems like often the choice is, simply to not have them. That's all I mean by sophistication--the ability to look at how you are living, and make those choices for yourself.
    - pmjordan 16y ago
      Exactly this. European governments have put various financial incentives in place for having kids, yet they're scratching their heads why they're not working. At least in Austria, it pretty much doesn't matter how much your household earns, up to a certain level (it's somewhere around €2300/month net if I remember correctly), as long as you have at least 2 kids. The child benefits plus family tax breaks compensate for low income. The benefits are diminished (not just proportionally) at higher income levels, which basically means there's an incentive for poor people to have kids. Having a kid probably won't reduce your standard of living if it comes with a 50% raise or whatever. One parent dropping from full-time to part time will also have little to zero financial impact at that level. At higher income levels, none of that is true. The jobs tend to be more demanding, working part time is hardly an option, and daytime childcare is expensive. The €100/month/child or so the government give you won't even get close to covering that. I don't know if the incentives are working among those with lower income - they have more kids, but for all I know they would have more anyway, but the current setup is useless for encouraging reproduction across the board.
bnoordhuis 16y ago
Women of Europe! We need to remedy this situation. I'll do my bit if you do yours. Email address is in my profile, please attach pictures. (I kid, I kid. I've already done my share: the little one is expected next month).
- dennisgorelik 16y ago
  Your share is 2.1 kids, not just one.
  - bnoordhuis 16y ago
    Fair point. I'll get right on it!
    - mahmud 16y ago
      diversify your DNA portfolio.
olegkikin 16y ago
Is this a problem? Overpopulation seems worse to me.
- jseliger 16y ago
  Yes, a big one, as the article explains: if you have a massive number of old people living on pensions / versions of social security, but not a lot of younger people working to produce goods and services, those old people are not going to be able to survive at the standards of living they'd like and b) over-taxed young people are going to be incentived to not work or leave. These are not good things, especially because they have recursive aspects, as discussed.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    That's a problem that will solve itself in a maximum of about 70 years.
    - bpodgursky 16y ago
      No, it won't. If you maintain the same sub-replacement fertility rate, you'll end up with a stable inverted population pyramid, albeit a constantly shrinking one. Every generation will have too few workers to support too many retirees.
  - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
    Children are a Ponzi scheme - you have lots of children to support you in old age (either directly in 3rd world or via social security in the 1st) This leads to over population - but screw them, you will be dead. It's rather like some countries attitude to consuming natural resources, if we don't burn the oil first somebody else will
- skowmunk 16y ago
  its literally a catch 22 situation, its a matter of what perspective (regarding the time factor) one is looking at. Over population will cause pressure on the sustainability of resources on the planet, not to mention inefficient use of resources and resulting pollution. Under population in a society will put other pressures on the sustainability of a society - more of the economic type and on a longer time frame. The pressures would be more about having a critical enough market size that can support enough jobs and hence a decent enough quality of life.
TheEzEzz 16y ago
I think the problem is integrating family life with the rest of your life. Right now both concepts are completely orthogonal, so when you start a family suddenly you have a much bigger management problem. (I Am Not An Anthropologist, but) My understanding of traditional hunter gatherer societies is that women would keep on working even with a small baby. The baby could be strapped to the womans back, or simply kept close by, so that the woman could keep working but still have quick access to the baby to nurse it when needed. When the child got older, they would have the entire tribe looking out for them, so there wasn't a need for constant micromanagement. We have daycares, but that only lasts half the day. After work the parents are expected to dedicate the rest of their night to supervising. That's a big (and unnatural) time commitment, in my opinion.
philwelch 16y ago
One of my (rather cynical) friends predicts that liberal, secular, Western culture is going to die out in the long run. He thinks certain religious traditions that encourage children and families (traditional Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism) will survive, but not us. I argued it was a race--could our culture infect theirs before theirs outpopulated ours? It'll be interesting to see (in the ominous, "may you live in interesting times" sense of the word).
- po 16y ago
  This assumes that a person cannot be born in a religious culture and convert to a more secular culture or vice versa. [edit] Could the people down-voting please explain why this is not a valid point?
  - philwelch 16y ago
    I argued it was a race--could our culture infect theirs before theirs outpopulated ours? That sentence kind of implies what you said. I didn't downvote you (I can't because of how HN works) but I'd assume that's the reason why.
    - po 16y ago
      I see... I didn't interpret "could our culture infect theirs" as converting people over. I don't see it as something infective. There will naturally be a good deal of attrition. Makes sense, thanks.
  - ars 16y ago
    Because globally it's a very very small number of people who do this, so for this article it barely matters.
- olalonde 16y ago
  China is secular and mostly atheist. Yet they have an over population problem. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN:USA:EGY&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&s...
cstross 16y ago
Inconvenient facts this article doesn't mention include the baby booms in France and the UK since 1998. Given that post-natal and social policies have a huge impact on birth rates and are set at a national, not EU, level, this report needs to be taken with a bucket (not a pinch) of salt.

39 points by b-man 16y ago

amttc 16y ago

Compare with this article from a few months back: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.... . While this article isn't exclusively about just birth rate, it notes that Sweden has one of the higher birthrates in Europe. Looking at wikipedia, the birth rate for Sweden is still (what I suppose is) low, only 1.67, compared with the US at 2.09. edit: just in case you aren't inclined to read through, the article is about granting fathers paternity leave.

jarin 16y ago
Darn, and I thought it was going to be about Children of Men.
- amttc 16y ago
  I think what all of these articles point to is that it's expensive or time consuming to raise kids, so people simply don't have them. It seems like the key to raising fertility rates is just to provide a good environment for parents to have them in, like giving leave to new parents and giving tax incentives or stipends to those who do. Then again, its probably more complex than this.
  - spamizbad 16y ago
    An interesting argument I've heard wrt to "high" western birthrate countries is that it has more to do with the societal roles of women. In both the United States and Sweden, women are generally told they can have both a career and become mothers, and while this view is not universally held in either country, it's a widespread belief. By contrast, in western nations with lower birthrates, the social views tilt towards women being told they can have a career OR become a mother, and that trying to be both is detrimental. What tends to happen in nations when motherhood becomes an either-or proposition is, women opt to either forgo childbearing or chose to only have 1 child and then continue on with their career track. Whereas in countries with a broader view of motherhood, women who want both aren't guilted by society to stop at 1 or, and likewise fewer women face the choice of forgoing or limiting motherhood to pursue their career ambitions.
    - kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
      Generally there is a bounce. For a generation after women get the chance of a career, education etc the birth rate plumnets - this is the position Italy is in. Then 20-30 years later those same women have reached positions in politics, industry, education etc where they can influence policy on childcare, maternity leave etc. Then the number of children goes back up - this is the state Scandanavia is in. Germany is a little odd, remember that less than 20years ago it absorbed a 3rd world country which rather screws up it's stats.
      - Riesling 16y ago
        Calling the DDR a 3rd world country is a little exaggerated in my opinion.
        kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
        HN now with free hyperbole.

yoasif_ 16y ago

This article is a bit of a slog (but well worth reading) -- I summarized the most interesting part to me (birthrates and why) here: http://quippd.com/show/4304/Where_have_all_Europes_babies_gone http://quippd.com/show/4304/Where_have_all_Europes_babies_go...

bpodgursky 16y ago

Sometimes worry that this is a depressing answer to Fermi's paradox (Fermi's paradox asks why no intelligent life has been found, if the odds of it are so high): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Maybe when a species/civilization gets to a certain point of sophistication and intelligence, the motive to keep expanding (or even reproducing, apparently) stops, and they don't go on to colonize anywhere else. Really, the only reason the Americas are so populated right now is because of crazy overpopulation in Europe at the time. If a new continent was discovered today (or if Mars was suddenly terraformed), how long would it take for it to be populated? Would it ever be?

adnam 16y ago
It's not sophistication and intelligence. It's the cost of living.
- bpodgursky 16y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. Plenty of people living in poverty manage to have quite large families. I think instead it's the desire to have children only if you can have them and still live a the level of comfort you desire. It used to be, that people had kids simply because it was the default, and everyone did. But now that society has advanced to the point that people are able to make different decisions, it seems like often the choice is, simply to not have them. That's all I mean by sophistication--the ability to look at how you are living, and make those choices for yourself.
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    Exactly this. European governments have put various financial incentives in place for having kids, yet they're scratching their heads why they're not working. At least in Austria, it pretty much doesn't matter how much your household earns, up to a certain level (it's somewhere around €2300/month net if I remember correctly), as long as you have at least 2 kids. The child benefits plus family tax breaks compensate for low income. The benefits are diminished (not just proportionally) at higher income levels, which basically means there's an incentive for poor people to have kids. Having a kid probably won't reduce your standard of living if it comes with a 50% raise or whatever. One parent dropping from full-time to part time will also have little to zero financial impact at that level. At higher income levels, none of that is true. The jobs tend to be more demanding, working part time is hardly an option, and daytime childcare is expensive. The €100/month/child or so the government give you won't even get close to covering that. I don't know if the incentives are working among those with lower income - they have more kids, but for all I know they would have more anyway, but the current setup is useless for encouraging reproduction across the board.

bnoordhuis 16y ago

Women of Europe! We need to remedy this situation. I'll do my bit if you do yours. Email address is in my profile, please attach pictures. (I kid, I kid. I've already done my share: the little one is expected next month).

dennisgorelik 16y ago
Your share is 2.1 kids, not just one.
- bnoordhuis 16y ago
  Fair point. I'll get right on it!
  - mahmud 16y ago
    diversify your DNA portfolio.

olegkikin 16y ago

Is this a problem? Overpopulation seems worse to me.

jseliger 16y ago
Yes, a big one, as the article explains: if you have a massive number of old people living on pensions / versions of social security, but not a lot of younger people working to produce goods and services, those old people are not going to be able to survive at the standards of living they'd like and b) over-taxed young people are going to be incentived to not work or leave. These are not good things, especially because they have recursive aspects, as discussed.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's a problem that will solve itself in a maximum of about 70 years.
  - bpodgursky 16y ago
    No, it won't. If you maintain the same sub-replacement fertility rate, you'll end up with a stable inverted population pyramid, albeit a constantly shrinking one. Every generation will have too few workers to support too many retirees.
- kjhgbhjkl 16y ago
  Children are a Ponzi scheme - you have lots of children to support you in old age (either directly in 3rd world or via social security in the 1st) This leads to over population - but screw them, you will be dead. It's rather like some countries attitude to consuming natural resources, if we don't burn the oil first somebody else will
skowmunk 16y ago
its literally a catch 22 situation, its a matter of what perspective (regarding the time factor) one is looking at. Over population will cause pressure on the sustainability of resources on the planet, not to mention inefficient use of resources and resulting pollution. Under population in a society will put other pressures on the sustainability of a society - more of the economic type and on a longer time frame. The pressures would be more about having a critical enough market size that can support enough jobs and hence a decent enough quality of life.

TheEzEzz 16y ago

I think the problem is integrating family life with the rest of your life. Right now both concepts are completely orthogonal, so when you start a family suddenly you have a much bigger management problem. (I Am Not An Anthropologist, but) My understanding of traditional hunter gatherer societies is that women would keep on working even with a small baby. The baby could be strapped to the womans back, or simply kept close by, so that the woman could keep working but still have quick access to the baby to nurse it when needed. When the child got older, they would have the entire tribe looking out for them, so there wasn't a need for constant micromanagement. We have daycares, but that only lasts half the day. After work the parents are expected to dedicate the rest of their night to supervising. That's a big (and unnatural) time commitment, in my opinion.

philwelch 16y ago

One of my (rather cynical) friends predicts that liberal, secular, Western culture is going to die out in the long run. He thinks certain religious traditions that encourage children and families (traditional Catholicism, Islam, Mormonism) will survive, but not us. I argued it was a race--could our culture infect theirs before theirs outpopulated ours? It'll be interesting to see (in the ominous, "may you live in interesting times" sense of the word).

po 16y ago
This assumes that a person cannot be born in a religious culture and convert to a more secular culture or vice versa. [edit] Could the people down-voting please explain why this is not a valid point?
- philwelch 16y ago
  I argued it was a race--could our culture infect theirs before theirs outpopulated ours? That sentence kind of implies what you said. I didn't downvote you (I can't because of how HN works) but I'd assume that's the reason why.
  - po 16y ago
    I see... I didn't interpret "could our culture infect theirs" as converting people over. I don't see it as something infective. There will naturally be a good deal of attrition. Makes sense, thanks.
- ars 16y ago
  Because globally it's a very very small number of people who do this, so for this article it barely matters.
olalonde 16y ago
China is secular and mostly atheist. Yet they have an over population problem. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=sp_pop_totl&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:CHN:USA:EGY&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&s...

cstross 16y ago

Inconvenient facts this article doesn't mention include the baby booms in France and the UK since 1998. Given that post-natal and social policies have a huge impact on birth rates and are set at a national, not EU, level, this report needs to be taken with a bucket (not a pinch) of salt.